


Cold

by boxoftheskyking



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: Mourning, Yona's brain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-02
Updated: 2014-08-02
Packaged: 2018-02-11 11:50:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2067075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boxoftheskyking/pseuds/boxoftheskyking
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I can't think about life before the train," he says, slowly, "Or outside. And I can't - I can't imagine after. After the train."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold

He's kneeling in a pool of blood - everything is a pool of blood - and it's colder than he expected. Strangely cold, soaking in through the knees of his pants. He has one hand outstretched, just barely brushing Edgar's hair, but he can't quite bring it down.

"What are you doing?" 

He startles at her voice and cups his hand around the back of Edgar's skull.

She squats down next to him and plays with the hem of Edgar's jacket.

"I can't think about life before the train," he says, slowly, "Or outside. And I can't - I can't imagine after. After the train."

"What do you mean?" She tilts her head at him, wide-eyed like she's looking through to the wall behind him.

"After the train. They used to tell us that we'd go somewhere, somewhere better. After this world. After the train, I guess."

She laughs, and he flinches. "There's just more train!"

"What do you see? Here, look." He grabs her hand and moves it up to Edgar's shoulder, shakes it a little.

She shrugs. "Dead."

"Yona." He isn't pleading, he isn't, but she freezes and looks at him like he is and her hand holds tighter, slides up around the back of the boy's neck.  
"Cold."

Curtis slumps. "Never mind."

"He's always cold. You never hold him the way you're supposed to." She smiles down at the boy's face, weirdly familiar, too intimate. "He doesn't really let anybody else touch him."

"What?"  
"All you ever give him is your back, and you don't get warm from somebody's back."  
She holds still for a moment, then narrows her eyes.

"He is -" She gasps and pulls her hand back, sharply.

"Yona - "

"No more! Won't do anymore!" She rises and backs away from him, terrified, tripping over an outstretched leg. 

Curtis turns back to the body in front of him. Still cold. Still dead. He touches the jaw, just gently, for the first time. Runs his thumb down the nose, across the lips. Spreads his hand flat on the back, curves it around the side. It feels so strange, off-balance, foreign. It's the silence. Cold, still, silent - he doesn't know the boy at all. Seventeen years and he never - 

"Fuck."

He covers his mouth and just looks. He looks so different. Cold, still, silent - he could be anyone. 

"Hey, Edgar," he whispers. Nothing. He looks around, embarrassed, but no one's paying him any mind. Some of them are starting to fall asleep. Some of them will probably die in the night, but there's nothing he can do about it. He shifts and curls up on his side, blood soaking into his coat, against his cheek.

"Hey, Edgar," he says again, and curls an arm around the boy's back. The blood on his side is starting to dry, and it's sticky under his fingers. "What the fuck did you say to Yona, huh?"

He bumps his nose against the boy's forehead. 

"Hey - Hey, Edgar?"

If his voice breaks, no one can hear him.


End file.
